GALVESTON
The Port of Galveston will install touchless bathroom fixtures, Plexiglas sneeze guards, air purifiers and infrared sterilizers in its two cruise terminals as measures to curtail the spread of COVID-19.
The Galveston Wharves Board of Trustees on Tuesday unanimously voted to spend $94,000 for the upgrades to the cruise terminals. The port will pay for the costs of the upgrades and doesn’t plan to split the costs with the three cruise companies that operate from the port.
In a separate vote, the wharves board, which governs the port, also approved a resolution urging the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to come to a quick decision about what rules cruise companies and ports will have to follow to get back to business after a pandemic-induced hiatus that has left the industry badly listing.
A new announcement about the federal government’s plans to allow cruises to resume could come as soon as today. Late Tuesday afternoon, Axios, a Washington-based online news website, reported that a no-sail order would be extended to Oct. 31, the same day the cruise industry’s voluntary shutdown is scheduled to end.
The decision was influenced by the White House, which overruled a push by CDC Director Robert Redfield to ban cruises until February 2021, according to Axios.
Although the industry and federal health officials haven’t announced a date for cruises to resume, the safety enhancements to the Port of Galveston terminals would be fairly simple to accomplish and should be completed before the restart of cruising from Galveston and other U.S. ports., Port Director Rodger Rees said
“What we’re doing is making our buildings a lot more safe,” Rees said. “We’re trying to minimize the spread through the whole terminal, so we’re upgrading.”
More than 900,000 cruise passengers passed through the port’s terminals in 2019.
The port will install touchless faucets and door openers in bathrooms and install Plexiglas barriers in places where cruise passengers will be face to face with ticket-takers, security guards and other employees, Rees said. The port also will install self-cleaning devices on escalator handrails and elevator buttons, officials said.
The port has enough money to pay for the upgrades, largely through cargo business and revenues that were generated before the pandemic shut down the cruise industry.
Cruise ships haven’t sailed from the Port of Galveston since March because of a series of no-sail orders issued by the CDC and voluntarily postponements by the U.S. cruise industry. The CDC’s latest no-sail order ends today, but the cruise industry already has canceled all of its cruises through the end of October.
Disney Cruise Line, which operates seasonal cruises out of the Port of Galveston, has delayed the start of its sailings from the island until the middle of December at the earliest, officials announced in September.
The upgrades approved by the wharves board Tuesday offer some idea about what the cruise terminals will look like when passengers return, but more details about procedures and requirements cruise companies will be expected to use when cruises resume haven’t been released.
Earlier this month, a group of cruise companies representing large segments of the cruise industry told the CDC they would require mandatory COVID-19 testing of all cruise and passengers ahead of all cruise departures. Royal Caribbean Cruises, however, split from the larger industry group in its own comments to the CDC, saying it was willing to test all crew members and simply screen passengers for symptoms and exposure to COVID-19 as they board ships.
Other details, such as what procedures a cruise ship will be required to take should it return to Galveston with COVID-19 infected passengers also haven’t been finalized. A situation such as a mass quarantine would depend on agreements between cruise companies and medical providers and not necessarily involve the port or port property, Rees said.
Rees trusts that safety procedures would be published and shared before cruises resume, he said.
“I can’t imagine it’s in anybody’s best interests for there to be mysteries,” Rees said. “I think really what’s happening is that the cruise lines will be the ones putting in place procedures for the quarantining. There will have to be parts of terminals that will have to be available areas for quarantining and for examining passengers if they come in with symptoms.”
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September 30, 2020 at 10:00AM
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Port of Galveston approves COVID upgrades to cruise terminals - Galveston County Daily News
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